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Bloomberg Endorses Preparing Parking Spaces for E.V. Charging

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is supporting greater use of electric vehicles in New York City.Credit Frank Franklin Ii/Associated Press

In his final State of the City address on Thursday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced plans to make New York City a “national leader” in electric vehicles. He said he would work with the City Council to amend the building code and require up to 20 percent of all new public parking spaces be set up for electric vehicle charging, which could lead to “10,000 parking spots for electric vehicles over the next seven years.”

The Bloomberg administration said many details of the proposed building code revision, including how many wired spaces would be required in new lots or garages, have yet to be worked out. As initially outlined, the requirement will focus on installing electrical conduit during the construction phase that can easily be threaded with wiring, not actually requiring chargers. Those units could go in as demand increased, the city said. New York City has 100 public charging stations, the administration said, and at least 50 will be added this year.

Curbside electric car charging is not widely available in New York, but the city is moving ahead with plans to install two 480-volt fast chargers, one open to the public at Seward Park on the Lower East Side and the other at the Con Edison Building on Irving Place in Manhattan. The latter charger will be reserved for the six new Nissan Leaf battery cars that the city will add to its taxi fleet later this year.

The six Leafs are in a pilot program with the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission that is part of the Taxi of Tomorrow plan. An international competition for the city’s new taxi fleet settled on a conventionally powered Nissan NV200, which could eventually be offered in electric form. A recent lawsuit filed by the Greater New York Taxi Association claimed that the city’s plan for the Nissan vehicles violated provisions requiring that new cabs be hybrid electric vehicles. In his speech, the mayor said the city’s goal was to make a third of its taxi fleet electric by 2020.

The city will also add 50 new electric cars to city fleets this year, the mayor said. The new vehicles will be operated by the departments of Parks, Transportation and Education, among others. The mayor’s office said that New York City operated 458 plug-in electrics, including 102 Chevrolet Volts. City fleets are served by 120 charging stations, and an additional 30 will be added as part of the new initiative, the city said.

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